


Running To Conclusions

by Squash (JeSuisGourde)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 16:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14500917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeSuisGourde/pseuds/Squash
Summary: The rest of them have managed to grow into some form of confidence and stability since Jack returned, but Owen is still all anxiety and precarious emotions under the false bravado. Ianto knew that when he started this relationship, but he had hoped something might change because of his presence in Owen's life. Clearly he'd been wrong.This is his square.The text blinks the labeled message again, reassuring him.You can find him with this.





	Running To Conclusions

**Author's Note:**

> I had a dream in which a small section of this story happened. So when I woke up, I wrote a plot outline around the scene and this is what came out. I feel like I'm finally getting my Torchwood-writing sea legs back after like 6 years of not writing for this fandom at all.

“If only diplomacy worked in just _one_ of these situations,” Ianto complains, managing to keep only mildly sarcastic annoyance in his voice. He's running, he's splattered with mud and caked with dust, and the distinctive sound of growling behind him is incredibly distracting.

“This is Earth, in the twenty-first century,” counters Owen with a short, sharp laugh. “We barely even know what diplomacy is with our own species.”

They've been running through the derelict, half-finished building they've tracked the aliens to for a good five minutes—which is just too long in the measurement of Time Spent Being Chased By An Alien—scrambling over abandoned construction debris, racing up and down corridors, searching for an exit and trying to shake off their pursuers. Ianto stays half a step behind Owen, knowing he's both a faster runner and a better shot. He wishes Jack hadn't chosen this assignment to delegate. Owen takes a flying leap down a set of stairs and nearly falls, pausing to catch his breath and let Ianto catch up as he takes a less daring path down the staircase. Then he's off again like a shot. It's freezing, and their breath mists in front of them and then disappears as they run through it. They scramble over more slabs of concrete blocking their way; Owen swears loudly as he tears a hole in the knee of his trousers.

“I was happy when I woke up this morning, you know,” Ianto remarks breathlessly. “It was warm and comfortable, and you were there. It was nice.”

“I'm still here, there is that.”

“Yeah, there is that.” He ducks as debris and splinters rain down just to their left. “Not much _bloody_ else, though.”

The building's walls fragment into the unfinished wing, scaffolding opens up into bare bones of wood and plaster and spits them out into the rapidly thickening darkness. Ianto fights to keep up with Owen, who is more wiry and has a good two years of field work on him.

“Fence!” he manages to call out just as Owen's hands stretch out to collide with the links with a growl. They both look up, calculating. “No, too high to climb, and it's got barbed wire at the top anyway—gotta find another way.”

They run along the border, searching for an opening, a gate, anything. Ianto tries to ignore Owen's angry muttering as they round the corner, concentrating on seeing through the thick darkness.

“Gate! Here!” Owen skids to a stop and Ianto nearly crashes into his back as the medic dodges right and flings himself against the gate in the fence. A gate with a chain padlocked around it. “Bollocks. Locked. Stand back.”

Ianto shifts as Owen steps backward a few feet, pulling his gun out of its holster and aiming. He tenses for the sound of the report of a gun, the resounding clang of metal on metal, looking behind him as growls and the whirr of charging weapons grow louder. He follows Owen through the gate towards freedom. He can feel Owen's eyes taking stock in the darkness, trying to make sure he isn't hurt. It's a strange but pleasant sensation, that someone cares about him enough to check up on him even in the middle of imminent and growling danger.

“No! Shit!” They're face to face with a second fence, ten metres or so away from the first. Again, they race beside it looking for a gate. Again, Owen finds it, but this time the lock has an unnecessarily secure keypad, and the barbed wire is doubled with unnecessarily dramatic razor wire. Owen grumbles about excessive security for an abandoned building site and yanks the lockpick device from the small pack on his back, but they both know it takes thirty seconds. Thirty seconds they don't have.

“Come on, come on,” Owen is muttering encouragingly to the machine. “Fucking go, they're nearly here.” He glances behind them, then at Ianto, looking suddenly annoyed. “Where the fuck is Jack?”

“I don't know,” Ianto leans over his shoulder, peering. “Isn't there anything we can do to make it faster? Surely advanced alien tech should—”

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, because suddenly something searing and terrible is tearing its way through his right shoulder, in through the back and out again, and he's collapsing with a yell of pain, hand coming up to touch, and Owen is yelling too, and then yelling in triumph, putting his hands under Ianto's armpits and yanking him up and dragging him through the gate. They stumble together, and Owen's got Ianto's left arm over his shoulder and is practically holding him upright as Ianto's brain starts to white out with agony. A turn down an alleyway and they find themselves in the back lot of a series of shops; Owen lowers them both down against a wall, panting. Ianto realizes with a flare of panic that he's bleeding as well. The world greys for a moment and he's drifting, but only for a second.

“Ianto?” Owen has his hands on him, is tearing at his shirt. Ianto wants to tell him now's not the time for life-affirming sex, that happens after survival has been confirmed, but he can't find his breath. “Ianto! Fuck, I took too long, didn't I? Come on, Ianto, hang on.”

The pain in his shoulder has radiated through his whole body, flattening every other sensation into something secondary that he's having a hard time feeling through the screaming of his own nerves. Ianto decides bollocks to the whole survival first thing and tries his best to pull Owen closer. Something soft and warm and gentle in the cold, unforgiving world of concrete and metal and _pain_ they've found themselves in. He can feel Owen's hands on him, inspecting his wound, shifting his limbs, moving up to rub his face. Blood trickles into his eye, even though he doesn't remember hitting his head. Owen has propped him up a little against the wall and is on his knees, bent down over him. Oh. Owen is bleeding. Owen's bleeding as he leans over above him and his blood is sliding down his elbow and dripping into Ianto's eye. Why is he bleeding? Ianto doesn't remember hearing a second shot. His own wound suddenly stabs out at him as if it's angry at not getting attention.

“Owen,” he manages, and feels the doctor bend even closer, both hands pressed to either side of Ianto's body, stemming the blood flow of the wound. Ianto clutches at the cloth just below the back of Owen's neck. The last thing he sees is Owen's terrified face in the dim lighting of the lot. His hands are clenched in Owen's shirt; through the cloth, Owen's skin is like a furnace on his knuckles. Then the pain crescendos and everything is black.

There's a voice, calling to him, and as the black fog of unconsciousness dissipates, Ianto can hear Owen whispering his name. He slits his eyes open; the sky is lighter, and Owen is staring down at him, fear and guilt in his eyes. On the other side of the buildings, out in the street, he hears a shout, the slam of car doors. Owen glances behind him, then back at Ianto, looking stricken. “I'm sorry,” he chokes out, “Oh god.” Ianto's eyes slide closed again as the blackness returns to claim him.

He wakes to rhythmic beeping and too much white and someone holding his hand who isn't Owen or Jack, but Gwen. His shoulder throbs angrily, and the thick padding of bandages feels like a clumsy weight on his right side.

“Gwen?” he croaks, and her head shoots up from her phone where she'd been checking something. “This isn't the hub.”

She smiles at him, gap-toothed and relieved. “You're awake! Here, let me get you some water.”

He drinks through the straw she puts to his lips then groans as he tries to shift his position to something more comfortable. “You know, they say people who sleep on their backs are more rested. I'm beginning to think that's a lie.”

Gwen gives him an affectionate, close-mouthed smile. “Okay, other than tired, how are you feeling?”

“Sore. This isn't the hub. Why am I in the hospital?”

“You—needed care we couldn't give you. You needed surgery.” Surgery. His mind conjures up the image of Owen's face, frantic and scared as he pressed both hands to the wound.

“Did we get—whatever those things were? And where's Owen? Is he okay?”

“Jack tracked you through the comms. He killed the aliens on the way to you. He told me we shouldn't have sent you in without backup.” She answers his next question before he can even open his mouth. “We've been sitting with you in shifts. It's nine in the morning, we switched about half an hour ago. He's back at the hub, checking up on everything.”

“When can I leave?”

“When the doctors say so. Ianto, you were shot through the shoulder. They said half an inch lower and it'd have gone through your lung. You're lucky.”

“Will someone bring me my laptop, then? Or some paperwork. Something to keep me occupied if I'm going to be stuck in here like an invalid.” He'll risk being called a workaholic with no life if it gives him something to do.

“Fine. I'll have Tosh bring you some things. She's next to sit with you. Now, you should get some rest. You'll heal faster if you sleep.”

Yesterday morning he'd woken up Owen's big, slutty purple bed early enough to be able to appreciate the comfort of the soft warm sheets and the warm, relaxed body curled next to him. Now he's in an ugly hospital room feeling like he's been run over by a couple of lorries. And Owen isn't here to look peaceful and soft beside him. And Gwen is avoiding the subject.

“Gwen? Where's Owen? Is he okay?” Every member of Torchwood is a master at evasion, but that doesn't mean Ianto isn't going to try.

“He's all right, Ianto. He's just busy, he's gone out.” She gives him that smile, the close-mouthed, raised eyebrows smile for when she's avoiding a question. Ianto _wants_ to keep asking, but he _is_ tired, and he knows Gwen can be incredibly hard-headed when she wants to be. She bends down to kiss him on the cheek. “I've got to go now. I'll be back, and Tosh will get here soon. Sleep, love, you'll feel better if you do.”

Clearly his post-injury interrogation techniques aren't up to snuff, so Ianto bids her goodbye and does as he's told, drifting off into a sleep that is deep enough and exhausted enough that it's just black emptiness, and he's sure he hasn't slept like that without drugs or actual head trauma in a long time.

When he wakes up, it's still light outside, but Toshiko has clearly been and gone, since there's a stack of files on the table by his bed, and when he opens the drawer, he finds his laptop tucked safely inside, and his mobile phone placed neatly atop it. He turns it on, thinking maybe he'll call Owen and yell at him for not reassuring him that he's okay and for not coming to visit. They never really made a commitment to monogamy; he's probably off shagging half of Cardiff as a reaffirmation that he survived the ordeal. Not that Ianto minds; relationships are never straight forward in Torchwood. He just wishes he'd had some sort of communication, even just a text saying _I'm not dead_ with a smiley face.

His phone loads itself up, but he can see an application has been left running that he doesn't remember turning on. The GPS is still active, despite the fact that he can only remember using the car's GPS the last few missions they've taken. If someone is trying to get him to go somewhere, they're going to have to wait.

Still, Ianto never really internalized the first part of that aphorism about curiosity when he was a child, it never made much sense to him. He opens the GPS app, watching the screen's images flicker and slide up into view. A map of Cardiff and the surrounding areas loads for him, the roads wriggling and branching across the city like arteries. A view he's seen a thousand times from the back of the SUV, or the middle of the hub, or the driver's seat of his car, or the middle of nowhere. Only something catches his eye. A small red squarish dot is making its way across the screen, traveling at a decent rate through the streets of the city. As he follows the mark on its way past Roath Park, text flashes up beside it. It lingers, then disappears, replaced by a different line of text. Ianto squints down at his mobile to read the messages.

 _This is his square._ The text tells him. It blinks again.

 _He is afraid to see you hurt._ Oh.

 _This is his square._ And he watches the little red mark drift across the screen, like a blood cell along a vein.

 _He think it's his fault._ Of course he fucking does. Because Owen has never been able to separate the personal from the professional. Because Owen, even with all his spikiness and sarcasm, is completely unable to react rationally to anything he has a hand in. Because he's more adept at and terrified of fucking up than any of the rest of them combined.

 _He is running away._ Because of course he is. The rest of them have managed to grow into some form of confidence and stability since Jack returned, but Owen is still all anxiety and precarious emotions under the false bravado. Ianto knew that when he started this relationship, but he had hoped something might change because of his presence in Owen's life. Clearly he'd been wrong.

_This is his square._ The text blinks the labeled message again, reassuring him.

_You can find him with this._

He closes his eyes and drops his head back onto the pillows, silently thanking Tosh and her subtle, diligent support. He's not even surprised that Jack's got all of their cars bugged. For now, he's just grateful. And if Owen is okay enough to run, that's a good thing as well. It means he's not badly injured, nor is he so fucked as to be suicidal. This is just Owen self-destructing in the usual way. And isn't it just depressing that there even is a 'usual way'. He can't remember a time when he wasn't slipping Owen painkillers with his coffee the morning after or calling Owen's mobile to wake his hungover arse up or pulling him bodily out of a bar before he got his face pummeled in by some jealous boyfriend.

But the lack of contact does worry him. Owen's a doctor, and when one of the team has to actually go to a non-Torchwood facility for treatment, he's usually all over the staff, demanding information and answers and test results.

A nurse knocks on the door before opening it to check on him. Ianto pretends to be asleep; he's in no mood for friendly conversation, and he gets the feeling he'd only end up asking if anyone has seen a particularly loud, sarcastic doctor with a London accent about, rudely attempting to force information out of one or all of them.

When the nurse has gone, Ianto retrieves his laptop from the drawer and starts in on the stack of files on the table. It's much quieter here than in the hub, meaning he can actually get some work done without someone demanding coffee, or asking where he's filed the Device For Reverting Metal Objects Back To Their Original Form because Jack has gotten bored again, or telling him that something's wrong with the electrics in the bathrooms on level three and would he please go take a look at it? So he should be able to get his work done, peacefully and quickly, only every time he stops typing to glance down at the papers beside him, his eyes are drawn to his phone, sat on top of the stack of files with the screen face-down.

He gets one entire document finished before he sighs and reaches for his mobile.

It's four in the afternoon, and the little red dot of Owen's car is parked outside what Ianto can only assume is a bar in Newport. He watches it despite the lack of movement, suddenly terribly grateful to Jack for insisting that they all install in their personal cars what he explained was essentially a simplified version of directional stabilisers used in spaceships: once they began driving, whether a destination was input on the GPS or not, the program made sure the car would not wobble or swerve off the road, get too close to another object, or go so fast as to risk damage. It explained why Jack seemed to be such an incredible driver during chases in the SUV. Ianto is now certain it has saved Owen's life on the way back from a bar on multiple occasions.

He watches the unmoving dot for another two hours before it starts moving again, back towards Cardiff, back towards home. He expects Owen to stop at his own flat, or the hub, or even by some stretch of hope, the hospital, but he seems to just be driving at random through the streets of Cardiff. Ianto hopes he's not searching for weevils to beat up.

Jack arrives in a flourish of coattails and poorly disguised worry. Ianto isn't sure why he hides his phone under his pillow like a guilty teenager, but there's something about the desperation of tracking your coworker's equally desperate movements that he doesn't want Jack to know about.

“How are you feeling?” Jack asks, once he's made himself comfortable in the ugly plastic chair provided for visitors.

“Sore.” Ianto is starting to feel like a broken record. “When can I go home?”

“When the doctors say you can."

“That's what Gwen said. Why can't I go back to the hub?”

“She was right. Seriously, Ianto, that was a nasty injury. It wasn't a laser, it was a physical bullet, but an alien one. It clipped your second rib and bounced up a bit before going through.”

“Gwen said half an inch lower and it would have been my lung.”

“Exactly. We wanted a more accurate and adequate repair than we could give you at the hub. This wasn't a clean shot, or digging a bullet out of a wound. We want you to rest before you come back to work.”

He doesn't ask about Owen. He doesn't want to hear whatever Jack's lie might be about how the doctor is “just fine” or “coping” or “a bit busy at the moment.” Instead, he decides to negotiate how to keep himself busy. He may as well make sure Jack knows he's resolute about doing _something_. If he's forced to just sit in a hospital bed and contemplate the walls, he'll go mad. Jack concedes to Ianto at least doing paperwork and maybe even some research, but he draws the line at working the comms, deeming it 'too stressful'. Then said comm beeps in Jack's ear and Tosh's voice filters through with an alert. Jack smiles apologetically, gives him a hurried kiss on the forehead and rushes out.

Ianto is alone again with his folders and his mobile.

Owen's car is parked outside of his own flat when Ianto checks the app again. At least he's not driving around like a madman in the dark. He thinks of Owen, sitting on the sofa, wobbly-drunk and blaming himself. He just wishes Owen would come to his room and hold his hand, like a _normal_ person would do; but when could he ever expect a normal reaction from Owen? Ianto considers flipping the phone upside down again, but thinks better of it and places it beside him on the bed. Then he opens his laptop and pulls a folder towards him, comforted by the fact that he can see the app onscreen out of the corner of his eye. He gets through half a file before texting Jack to make Rift activity priority over him; he doesn't need people sitting by his side now that he's awake and functional. It's no use being down two people-- or three, if Owen's behaviour is any evidence as to his assistance in the field. Jack replies in the affirmative, so Ianto turns the GPS back on and turns back to his work.

He gets through three files and three reruns of Father Ted episodes on the hospital television before Owen starts moving again. It's past midnight, and he snakes around the city centre for a while, as if he's indecisive about where to go, before beginning to branch out. It's only when Ianto watches him merge onto Cardiff Road that he realizes where he's headed. To Radyr, to Ianto's own crap flat. It's as heartbreaking as it is pathetic, and it's always like this with them. Ianto watches the car stop in front of his house. He wonders if Owen is unlocking his door and going inside (they all have keys to each other's places, just in case, as a safety measure), imagines him walking through the flat, imagines that crumpled look he gets on his face when he thinks some tragedy is all his fault. If only their utterly broken senses of self-esteem didn't result in egos so swollen with pain that every mishap becomes a chance at self-blame, another piece of the rubble to heave onto their already aching shoulders. Ianto still hasn't found a way to fix that.

Owen spends about half an hour sitting outside of—or maybe inside—Ianto's flat before driving back to Cardiff centre. Ianto knows it's foolish to hope Owen's going to go back to his flat and go to sleep. He sort of almost hopes he'll go back to the hub; at least someone there will stick him on the sofa and force him to stay still. No joy. Owen is getting on the A48 and, to Ianto's confusion, merging onto the M4 and speeding along towards the Severn Crossing. Fleeing back to England, faster at midnight than the middle of rush hour, and Ianto still has no idea what's going on.

_This is his square. He is running away._

Maybe Owen really _is_ running away; maybe somehow this one accident broke him irreparably. A gunshot wound and nothing more, causing Owen to implode into himself, another one of his self-destructive breakdowns. Ianto stares at the little moving dot for an hour, until his eyes hurt and Owen is well on his way towards London proper. Ianto closes his eyes. He shouldn't care this much, he should be trying to sleep. He forces his lids to stay shut. He manages fifteen minutes, during which a nurse comes into to give him his antibiotics and he contemplates the merits of just getting up and walking out of the place. Who is he kidding? He and Owen sleep in each other's beds every other night, give each other boredom blowjobs in the lower levels of the hub, know each other's favorite lunch and dinner orders, have slow, gentle sex at night after a nerve-wracking mission, and keep more than one change of clothes and a toothbrush at each other's flat. Ianto fucking _cares_.

When he checks his phone again, Owen is driving at random through London traffic, clearly heedless of the sheer amount of petrol all this is using up. Ianto wonders if the sensation of a sort of desperate helplessness in his own chest is even a fraction of what Owen must be feeling.

Ianto falls asleep watching Owen trace an incomprehensible path across the city.

And when he wakes up the next morning, Owen is parked somewhere in Bristol. Ianto guesses he's probably hungover, eating a burger or picking at a pastry in some shop. Suddenly, he aches. He wants nothing more than for Owen to come see him, even if it's just to yell at him. Even if it's just to say Fuck it all, I'm running away to England. Even if it's just to leave him.

He gets almost no paperwork done. Every sentence he types is punctuated by minutes long stretches of staring at the little dot snaking its way across the tangled web of roads on the screen.

And in the evening, his heart leaps for joy as he watches Owen's dot slow beside the hospital and turn into the car park. And then sinks as he watches the point circle the hospital five times before turning out again into the road and driving away. He thinks about sending Owen a text, only to rethink it half a second later. Owen can still run away from his phone. He can turn it off, throw it in the bay, leave it under his bed, any number of things. So Ianto is stuck here, watching Owen implode by satellite, wishing Torchwood had taught them all how to be a little more stable and not invest every ounce of emotion into perfecting the feeling of guilt.

He falls asleep to the glow of Owen driving grooves into the streets going from Ianto's apartment to his own, frustration bubbling inside him alongside the helplessness.

In the morning, he eats the bland breakfast that the nurse brings him and watches Owen's car sitting outside his flat for two hours before he thinks: fuck it. He pushes the call button and a nurse arrives a few minutes later, a smile on her face that's warm but detached.

“I want to check out today. I want to go home.”

“Mr. Jones,” the nurse's expression dips into a light frown, “I don't think that's very advisable. You ought to stay here at least until your wound has started to heal, and ideally until your round of antibiotics is done.”

Ianto misses Owen's blunt but ultimately caring bedside manner. He shakes his head. “No, I want to go home. Look, I'm not terminally ill, I'm not bleeding or contagious, and I'm not a criminal. I'm well enough to walk and go to the loo on my own and I'd really like to leave. I'll talk to the doctor assigned to me, if that's what it takes.”

That is what it takes. The doctor tries to convince him to stay, to get well at the hospital. But Ianto has a perfectly capable medic back at the hub who can take care of him, and he's bloody sick of sitting in a hospital bed, worrying about Owen and unable to get any work done. He's in the office for over an hour before the doctor finally relents, and then spends another hour filling out all manner of forms. He knows he should be sympathetic-- after all, half of his job includes forcing other people to fill out paperwork-- but he's just too preoccupied to be anything other than frustrated by the time this eats up.

Finally, he has his clothes returned to him and is allowed to leave. He _does_ text Jack as he steps out of the hospital and into daylight, just to let him know that no, he hasn't disappeared and that yes, he is checking out AMA and no, he doesn't give a fuck what he's been told. He takes a taxi over to Owen's flat and pays with his Torchwood credit card. Owen's car is nowhere to be seen, and the GPS tells Ianto that he's already driving around the city, despite it only being eleven in the morning.

 _This is his square._ The GPS tells him. _He thinks it's his fault. He is running away._

Ianto doesn't want to confront Owen in a public space if he can help it. In a bar, Owen can run. In a bar, Owen can have him thrown out, or throw him out himself. Owen is happily acquainted with fights in bars. Ianto doesn't want a fight. He wants to catch Owen and hold onto him until the man understands that he is just fine, he's not going anywhere, and none of this was anyone's fault. He wants to make sure Owen can't just disappear again and leave him on his own. He doesn't feel _abandoned_ , not really, but it feels as though Owen just gave up without even considering putting up a fight. It's like Owen's stubborn streak turns inward the moment anything resembling guilt crosses his mind.

So he lets himself into Owen's flat, because he'd rather wait until Owen decides to come home and change before going out to a bar than actually meet Owen _at_ a bar. His own coat is draped over a chair in Owen's living room, and their two mugs are still drying in the drainboard by the sink. Ianto pulls his out and makes himself a cup of tea. He doesn't need to add the teeth-grinding energy of caffeine to the anxiety already plaguing him. A little chamomile goes a long way. Ianto's not even sure why Owen has chamomile tea in his cupboard. Chamomile is not generally the beverage of choice, for comfort or shock, when it comes to Torchwood.

Without really thinking about it, he curls up in Owen's bed and places his phone on the pillow so he can watch the GPS. The sheets smell like Owen and suddenly Ianto really just wants to go to sleep and pretend none of this ever happened. But his shoulder twinges and for a moment Ianto wonders uncharitably if Jack's habit of unnecessary delegation is going to get them all killed, or at least ruined. First splitting up in the Beacons, then John Hart, now this.

He does fall asleep in Owen's bed. But he's not trying very hard not to.

When he wakes up, it's getting late, and Owen still hasn't returned. Only, now Ianto can see that he hasn't even bothered to come home before going to the bars; his car is parked around a cluster of pubs Ianto is vaguely familiar with. There's no doing it the easy way, then. Yet another cab ride on Torchwood's tab and Ianto has returned to the Plass. He hurries into the tourist center and down to the underground car park where his Audi has been sitting for the past three and a half days, not bothering to stop in and see the rest of the team. He knows they're just going to tell him to rest. They're going to tell him to wait until Owen calms down, which he knows is futile because Owen doesn't do calm when he thinks he's holding the blame for the entire world on his shoulders. And it's easier to think about _finding_ Owen than it is to think about what he's going to say when he _does_ find him.

He finds Owen hunched at the bar in a pub that is fairly packed for seven-thirty on a Tuesday evening, hair and clothes pathetically unkempt, a row of shot glasses in front of him. He's glaring off into the distant black corners of the building; the lighting in here's shit but even Ianto can tell his eyes are sunken and red-rimmed.

He didn't think this through, not this far. Does he sneak up on Owen? Just casually drop into the seat next to him, like it doesn't matter that Owen thought he was going to die? Call his name over the music playing just loud enough to have to raise your voice to be heard? He makes his way slowly across the room as a tries to work out which option might be best. The decision is made for him, though, when Owen shifts in his seat and catches sight of him.

He doesn't run; he just sits there, frozen, looking shocked. Half a dozen emotions flicker across Owen's face and Ianto is still walking forward, his mouth open, Owen's name on his lips, but Owen gets there first.

“Go away.” His voice sounds ragged, snarled at him with a sort of humiliated anger. “I don't need your pity or any other shit right now. So fuck off.”

Ianto doesn't stop walking, doesn't want to. Owen is hurting and vulnerable and Ianto knows that when he's like this he snaps and snarls like an animal caught in a trap, but it just takes the right words or the right touch to have him go gentle and fragile and reaching for comfort.

“Owen,” he starts, but he's left it to build too long and Owen is wrenching himself off the bar stool and pushing past Ianto and out the door. He sighs, and turns to follow. “Owen, come the fuck on.”

_He is running away._

Owen is a few metres down the pavement already and Ianto has to trot to catch up with him, the exertion leaving him winded; he can feel his heartbeat in his shoulder. The streetlights cast ugly yellow shadows over the both of them like an old bruise, and Owen is still hurrying away from him.

“Owen, stop!” he calls, and some of the pain must come through in his voice because Owen does stop, abruptly, everything about him tense and vibrating with emotion. “Just fucking talk to me.”

“ _What_ is there to talk about?” Owen wheels around, gaze dark and glittering sharply. “You shouldn't even _be_ here. Go home.”

He turns to go. Ianto steps into Owen's space and grabs at his shoulder. “No, I won't—”

Owen shoves at him. “Get off of— Oh fuck, Ianto!” The anger in his voice turns to shock as Ianto crumples to the ground, his body dizzy and weak from his wound, from exertion, from worry, from the lack of sleep. His shoulder throbs angrily, demanding his attention. Owen drops to his knees, one hand cradling Ianto's head, and all this seems painfully familiar.

“Are you okay?” There's a frantic edge to Owen's attempt at calm.

Ianto shakes his head to clear it. “Just—tired. Sore. Please can we talk?”

The drive from the pub to Ianto's flat is silent. Ianto can feel Owen staring at him, and out of the corner of his eye, he looks drawn and guilty and spectacularly damaged. He turns on to Cardiff Road and thinks of the way the bottom dropped out of his stomach when he'd watched Owen's red square turn onto this same street just the other day. In his peripheral, Owen's expression is taking on that of a stubborn interrogation subject, and Ianto can't help but think, _this has got to stop_. The problem is, neither of them have ever been particularly good at communication, and neither of them have a reference for how to react properly to things, and both of them have long since forgotten what healthy relationships are supposed to be like.

Owen is hunched and scowling when he gets out of Ianto's car, and Ianto practically has to shove him up the walk and into the flat. In proper lighting, Owen looks terrible. There are purple bruises under his eyes like he hasn't slept in days and his face is pinched in a way that makes him look even more angular and sharp. His expression is one Ianto hasn't seen since he killed Jack, agonized guilt mixed with fragile relief.

Owen can't look Ianto in the face; instead, he stares at his shoulder. “Are you okay? Shouldn't you still be in the hospital?”

Ianto rolls his eyes. “I'm fine. And yes, but I checked out early. I wanted to find you.”

“I'm fine on my own, Ianto. I don't need babysitting.”

“Yes you do. You ran off for three days. You didn't even come to check on me.” He doesn't mean for it to come out sounding as hurt as it does.

Owen looks away. “There were—things I had think about.”

“I wanted to see you. What if I'd gotten worse?” This is _not_ how he wanted this conversation to go. Somehow, their attempts at being vulnerable around each other always turn into fights and accusations. Like they can't even let the walls down around each other, no matter how much they might want to.

“But you didn't, did you?” Owen snaps, only his eyes are curiously shiny. “You're just fine, and you've checked yourself out against medical advice because you feel so fucking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Only I knocked you over without hardly touching you so maybe that wasn't the greatest idea in the world. And maybe it wasn't the greatest idea to come find me because who knows, I could have been baiting weevils again and then what would you have done?”

_He thinks it's his fault. He is running away._

“It wasn't your fault, Owen.” Ianto ignores the jab about the weevils. Leave it to Owen to turn his own self-destructive actions into an insult towards someone else. “Just because I got shot while I was with you in the field doesn't make it your fault. If those aliens had shot you, you'd be blaming them, not yourself or me.”

“They did.” It's very quiet, so soft Ianto almost misses it, and Owen is staring at the floor some feet in front of him, eyes dim.

“What?”

“They did. Shoot me. That bullet went through you and into my shoulder.” He shrugs, and only now Ianto notices that he's been favouring his left side. “Jack doesn't know about it. I had Tosh dig it out when we got back to the hub.”

“And then you left.”

Owen opens his mouth to respond, but his phone beeps, and then half a second later, Ianto's does too. They check the message.

_All hands on deck. Immediately. You too Owen. -J_

“You're car's at the pub. I'll drive you.” Owen moves to protest. “There's not enough time. I'll take you to pick it up after.”

The drive to the hub is mostly silent. Owen is staring out the window instead of at Ianto, and the warmth of the car makes the darkness feel like a strange sheet wrapped around them. Ianto taps the steering wheel, the pads of his fingers barely breaking the quiet.

“Owen?”

“Hmm?” Owen jerks out of his reverie and turns his gaze to the side of Ianto's face.

“Are you okay?”

They both know what he's asking, and Owen shrugs again, one-armed. “Sore. Probably not in the best shape for a full-on chase unless absolutely necessary. Collecting scars like it's my job. I'll live.”

The rest of the ride is in silence.

The hub is blazing with light when they get in, and Jack is pacing in the briefing room, while Gwen looks over a folder and Tosh clatters away on her laptop. Jack gives Ianto only a semi-disapproving look as they sit down. Then the computer projection flickers to life and Jack spins to face it.

“Alright. Looks like we really are going to be playing the dashing heroes tonight, kids.” Onscreen rotates the image of a small blue and white panther-like creature with huge eyes and a tentacle-like ruff around its neck. “This is a Vylite. They're a peaceful species from about three planetary systems over. Don't do much in the universe except sometimes trade in perfumes and deodorants.” The screen changes and now a squat, crimson creature reminiscent of a traditional gothic gargoyle rotates in its place. “This is a Muvu'ot. A violent species that has nothing else to do with its time and skills but perfect the art of kidnap and ransom.”

“Can it...fly?” Gwen asks curiously, staring into the ugly face on the wall.

“What? Oh, no, they can't. Those wings evolved away from functionality centuries ago. They're more likely to shoot at you from afar than come flying at you, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Great, because I _want_ getting shot at to be preferable.” Owen grumbles. “So, what's the follow-up to this anthropology lesson?”

“I got an urgent message in Vylian from what was essentially an intergalactic ham radio. It was an SOS, and when I responded, the Vylite said it had been kidnapped by a Muvu'ot ship and had managed to escape on a pod and jettison itself to Earth through the Rift. But the Muvu'ot don't give up that easily, and the Rift monitor recorded two entrances. The Vylite said they were being chased. So, it's up to us to track down the Muvu'ot and take them down so we can send the Vylite back home. Or at least back to a rescue ship.”

“I'll try and get a tracker on either or both subjects,” Tosh nods, gathering her things. “It'll only be a moment.”

Jack nods, dismissing her down to her station. “Owen, grab basic medical supplies, we have no idea if the Vylite will be injured or not.”

“Will Earth supplies work?”

“Bandages and such, yes. Ianto, do you know where the Standard Galactic Medical Kit is in the archives? Good, go grab it. Gwen, weapons store, get at least two weapons per person. Meet in fifteen, then we'll go.”

When Ianto returns to the main hub, the dusky silver box in hand, the others are clustered round Toshiko's desk, watching her fingers fly across the keyboard as she sets up two separate trackers on two separate screens. Owen shoves a bottle of painkillers into his hand and Ianto gives a weary smile in return. Tosh presses 'enter' with a flourish and looks up at her audience.

“The Muvu'ot tracker is the important one to watch, obviously. I've set up a separate tracker for the Vylite, just in case it keeps running after we've taken the other ones down, or if it's hard to find, or if it gets hurt. Just a precaution.”

“Good work,” Jack clasps her shoulder and she smiles. “Now, lets get going. Ianto, you're not allowed in the field yet. You're going to stay here and work the comms. Tosh, if you've got your handheld, let's go.”

The rest of the team move to go, and Ianto decides, fuck it, he's tired of all the holes guns seem to be putting into his life, and sick of always skipping over the shit that should matter and going straight to pain and blame and _hurt_ , so he grabs Owen's wrist before the medic can turn away and pulls him into a kiss. Owen tenses for a moment, surprised, but he melts into Ianto's touch and cups the back of his head, a sound like _relief_ rising out of his throat. It's a kiss that probably should have happened a hell of a lot sooner, and it feels like doubt is slithering away back to its ugly little cave instead of wrapping its coils around Owen's heart, and something desperate loosens in Ianto's chest as well. It's not talking, but _god_ , at least it's _something_. Ianto pulls away to catch his breath, feeling Owen's thumb pressed against his pulse point.

“Good luck,” he murmurs, kissing Owen again, fast and hard, then pushes him away with a hand at the centre of his chest.

Ianto doesn't know how Tosh does it; working the comms has always stressed him out. It's not the responsibility; it's being able to hear everything and watch the tracker and still having no idea what's really going on or any ability to help if something goes wrong. They follow the Muvu'ot to Parc Coed-y-Nant and Ianto can hear car doors slamming and Jack giving formations and he toggles the screen to individual comm trackers instead of the SUV.

He watches the team's little dots split off and begin to advance into the park, towards the signal of the Muvu'ot's ship. It reminds him with a sick little lurch of Owen driving desperately through London in the middle of the night. The computer beeps at him.

“Uh, Jack? It looks like the signal has split into two. I'm not sure if that means there's two ships, or if they've split off into two separate parties. Just— please avoid an ambush if you can.”

“Got it. Can you give us an approximate direction?”

“Original signal, about forty degrees west of you and Gwen. Newer signal, now about sixty north of Owen and Tosh, and moving quickly northeast.”

“And the Vylite?” Jack questions, his breathlessness indicating that he's broken into a run.

“Still on the move as well. It looks as though the Muvu'ot are equidistant between you and it, but you ought to get moving if you want to catch up.”

“You heard him. Weapons out, top speed. If you see a weapon, shoot first and ask questions later. If you see the Vylite, keep it in sight. Move!”

He watches all the multicoloured dots on the monitor break up and scatter, calling out directional changes when he thinks it'll be at all helpful, but mostly he just hates having to sit here, unable to really _know_ anything.

Suddenly, a series of dots collide on the screen, and Ianto can hear gun fire, and Owen swearing angrily, and a pained howl from somewhere in the distance, and then Owen is paging in.

“Four down. One got away. Jack, should we go after it or go for the other group?”

“I don't think it matters,” Ianto interrupts. “You seem to have got their attention, the second signal has changed course and is heading your way. I'm still getting a lone signal, it's going in the direction of the Vylite. Just the one.”

He can feel them all come to the same conclusion before Jack's command comes through. “Owen, Tosh, Gwen, take on the rest of the group. Like I said, shoot on sight. I'll go after the last one and see if I can find the Vylite. Owen, keep your comm open in case I need you.”

“Got it. Gwen, you're already in that direction, so circle round and take it from the left. Tosh, go that way and you'll come in from the right. I'll go down the centre. Let's go.”

And then everything is horribly, nerve-wrackingly silent and all Ianto can do is watch a series of dots slowly advancing until—

“Jack, your Muvu'ot has doubled back. I think it knows it's being followed and is going after you.”

“Better me than the Vylite,” Jack sounds annoyingly confident. “At least I'll get up again if I get shot.”

“Just be careful.” He glances at the other side of the screen. “Owen, you're nearly on top of them. Looks like six creatures. Be careful, you've already got their attention, they're going to be on the alert.”

“Yeah,” Owen whispers, and Ianto can hear the crunch of earth under his feet. “On it.”

“There's one closer to Tosh, three on the side Gwen is coming from, and two at the front.”

Owen toggles his comm off and on in acknowledgment. Two more beeps as the girls do the same.

A pause of absolute silence, and then gunfire rips through the connection and he can hear the team yelling and the shrieks of struck Muvu'ot and a small gasp of pain from Tosh's comm and then Owen's voice demanding if she's all right.

“Fine,” Tosh answers. “Twisted my ankle on a root. My one's down.”

“Mine too,” Owen's growl makes Ianto wonder if he's just taking out his frustration and anger on these kidnappers. He knows they're not what shot him, but they might as well be.

“Gwen still has one more,” Ianto cuts in. “It's moving more slowly, though. Looks to be injured, possibly.”

“Yeah,” Gwen's breathless voice joins them. “I clipped it, but it wasn't a direct hit. It limped off into the trees. I'm following.”

“Gwen, I'll catch up to you.” The snapping of twigs as Owen breaks into a run. “Tosh, check the ship, make sure the threats there have been neutralized.”

“Got it.”

“Jack?” Ianto calls in.

“Mine's down.” He can practically see Jack's narcissistic display of stretching. “I'm going to see if I can find the Vylite. Ianto, do you have a distance?”

“Four hundred or so metres northwest.”

“I'll send a signal first.”

The sound of shots, and then Owen comes back online. “Got it. Jack, do you need me?”

“Doesn't look like it. Vylite says it's scraped up but not injured enough to need medical attention. I've told it to stay still and that I'll go retrieve it. Ianto, can you give me its exact coordinates? The rest of you, gather the Muvu'ot bodies and put them near the ship. We'll incinerate them all together.”

Ianto listens with half an ear to the cacophony on the comms as Jack finds the Vylite and begins chattering away in Galactic Standard and Owen, Gwen, and Tosh split up and start dragging bodies to the clearing where the ship sits.

Alone in the hub, the white noise of his coworkers a vague but familiar chatter in his ear, Ianto can't help but drift, the throb of his shoulder dimmed to a gentle pulse by the painkillers. He wonders with not a little bit of humour what sort of stupid universe could have done something as dramatic as have a bullet go through him and into Owen. Like their relationship wasn't complicated enough, like every word and look and touch could equally mean _I love you_ or _I despise every bone in your body_ or _I resent you for all the little transgressions between us_ or _y_ o _u're the only stable thing in my life and that's both incredible and incredibly worrying_. As though they didn't already have a twisted relationship with bullets in each others' shoulders and lovers and never managing to say anything at the right time. Except there's also the increasingly likely probability that they're actually both painfully in love with each other, and Ianto's not sure how either of them are supposed to take that when they're both halfway towards perfecting the art of dangling their emotions over a pit and then _pushing_.

When the team returns, living alien guest and ashen alien remains in tow, Owen commands Ianto down to the medical bay to make sure his shoulder is properly cared for. They both pretend the look on Owen's face isn't one of an unhinged sort of worry. He peels away the bandage that is now nearly a day and a half old and flushes the wound, dressing it again (and Ianto pretends not to see Owen wince when he hisses in pain) and re-bandaging it. Then he shoos Ianto out of the room to clean up, and Ianto decides to do as he is told rather than stay and point out that this should be proof that it is _not_ Owen's fault and that he is holding up _just_ fine and that maybe this is all being blown out of proportion because they're both shit at communicating and kind of maybe desperately terrified of relationships but also incapable of functioning properly without someone to cling to at night and kind of desperate for that, too.

The Vylite is pacing the gangways and catwalks that make up the upper part of the hub, the light azure of its neck ruff tentacles looking like little comets the higher into the darkness it goes. Owen and Gwen are in the kitchen, presumably raiding the last box of lemon biscuits. Ianto makes a mental note to write out a list of pros and cons as to whether he should buy more or put them all on a diet. He puts his feet up on the coffee table—he's not as anal as everyone thinks he is—and watches Tosh work her magic to signal the Vylite's search and rescue ship. And, oh, the irony.

“Tosh?”

“Hmm?” She glances at him and then back to her computer, but he knows she's listening.

“Thanks for that program on my phone. I wouldn't have found him otherwise.”

She gives him that sweet, and frankly adorable, little knowing smile. “That's what friends are for. I wasn't about to let both of you continue to stew in gloom until something exploded.”

And Ianto is so glad Tosh got over her crush on Owen; she's become the best friend either of them could ask for. They make a strange and broken trio, but in Torchwood, _broken_ means it's working, somehow. She really deserves his thanks. He thinks again of the lemon biscuits in the kitchen. He knows he's got some special hazelnut chocolate ones stashed in a hiding place somewhere as well.

“I know I just made you coffee about five minutes ago, but do you want some biscuits?” He offers, gesturing towards her monitors. “After all, you're doing all the hard work right now.”

Tosh smiles at him. “Sure! Thank you, Ianto. You're the best.”

Ianto climbs the metal staircase towards the kitchen, stopping just before the top to let the Vylite cross the gantry in front of him up to the other set of catwalks, and he's glad he does because when he's stopped staring at its turquoise coat, he catches Gwen's voice on the other side of the door.

“So you're not going to talk to him, then.”

Owen's scoff sounds embarrassed, defensive. “Hell, no. Look, Gwen, I'm not you, I don't do talking. It's not my thing. Rather shoot meself.”

“That's been done for you,” Gwen sounds incredulous, like she's trying not to laugh at the absolute incapability of any of them to act like adults.

“Fuck off,” But there's no heat to it, and then Owen sighs. “Look, sooner or later he's going to realize he got hurt because I wasn't fast enough. That it was my fault.”

“And then he'll forgive you, because we get shot all the bloody time round here! This isn't the first time he's gotten hurt, and it won't be the last.”

“But I'm a doctor, I'm supposed to save people. And you're not supposed to get people you love hurt. And—and I think I do love him.”

There's a ringing silence. Ianto expects Gwen to squeal, or scold him, or any number of things, but it's like even the air is paralysed. Then the rustle of clothing as someone shifts and Gwen taps her fingernails on her mug.

“I think you'd better tell him that.”

A ragged inhale, a sniffle. “Fuck off.” But this time it just sounds miserable and tired.

Ianto turns and makes his way as quietly as possible down the stairs, back down towards Tosh. She frowns at him, and he wonders what state his expression must be in. Her gaze follows him as he sits heavily on the sofa. “The biscuits were—unavailable.”

It's not as though Ianto doesn't feel the same, he's just not used to Owen being the one to figure something like that out first. Normally Owen is blind action and stopping to examine the feelings after they've faded, or drowning so completely in emotion that it nearly breaks him. Owen doesn't do slow burn. Owen doesn't do quietly coming to conclusions.

Only now he does. And Ianto sits there and tries to slot this new information into the picture he has of Owen, the one that's starting to feel sweeter the more he looks at it.

Tosh gives a little hiss of victory and looks towards the office. “Jack, I've got a message from the ship! The translation says they're about half an hour away.”

“Excellent,” Jack swings out of his office. Gwen and Owen are already retrieving their jackets from their stations. “Just enough time for us to get the Vylite to higher ground. Ianto, you'll be on comms again. Everyone else, we're playing bodyguards.”

Jack calls up to the catwalks in Galactic Standard, a language that sounds like it could have been English at one point in history, but has been bastardized and combined with so many other sounds that it's nearly unrecognisable. The Vylite bounds down the catwalks to the main floor and follows Jack's lead, its neck tentacles waving happily.

The return goes mostly without a hitch, with Jack using Tosh's handheld as a makeshift radio to send coordinates to and then converse with the rescue ship. Ianto can hear Owen shuffling impatiently as Jack has a one-sided conversation in Galactic Standard (and at one point Gwen comes online just to whisper, “Ianto, it's so happy that it's glowing. You should see it, it's beautiful.” And he kind of wants to ask someone to get a picture, but he's got more tact than that) and then a sigh of relief when Jack finally turns to them and reports that the ship will be retrieving their charge in five minutes, and anyone who doesn't want to end up on a Vylian ship should step away.

Through the comms, Ianto can hear a whining sound, like a massive angry mosquito, and then a rush and clap of air. There's a collective sigh as everyone lets out the breath they were holding.

“Finally, a rescue going off without a hitch. No one died that didn't need to and we actually got the poor thing home,” Jack announces, pleased.

Tosh's alert system starts beeping in a mildly panicked fashion and Ianto toggles over to the program. “Jack, you might want to hold off on making pronouncements like that until you've actually returned.”

“What's going on?” Jack demands.

“Weevils.” Ianto sends the program alert to Tosh's handheld so she can translate the code raining down the screen.

“Looks like the frequency sent the weevils out of the sewers and into the streets. One of our satellites picked up on the frequency and adjusted itself to continue sending it, for some reason.”

“So turn it off!” Jack commands, car doors slamming as they all pile into the SUV.

“I can't, I don't have the power on this to figure out and send the reversal frequency.”

“I'll drop you at the hub,” Jack decides, and Ianto can hear the SUV's breaks squealing as he skids around corners.

“You're already down one person,” Ianto points out. “I can just go through the frequencies, try to figure it out while you four play weevil cowboys.”

“Fine,” Jack concedes. “Just get it done.”

It's days like this Ianto can't tell if he loves this job or hates it. He and Tosh are yelling numbers back and forth, and everyone else's breathing is harsh in his ears as they do their best to drive the weevils back underground or subdue the ones they can't intimidate. Jack is honest to god _laughing_ at the adrenaline rush and Owen only seems capable of communicating in a string of expletives. It's stupid and aggravating but Ianto knows they're going to come home satisfied and laughing and begging for pizza even though it's nearly three in the morning. He's half-delirious with frequency numbers, trying one calibration after another, and when the he hears the entire team break down into giggles he can't help but question all of their sanity.

“What the hell is going on? What's happened?”

“The dogs!” Tosh pants, laughing, “The dogs have all gone off!”

“Listen!” Owen must have unclipped his earpiece and held it aloft because suddenly Ianto can hear the howls as every dog in Cardiff seems be letting loose.

All he can do is utter a deadpan “whoops,” and move on to the next frequency.

Finally he enters in a series that works and Gwen lets out a triumphant whoop. “This is the one! They're retreating back underground! Mission bloody accomplished!”

“Alright everyone, meet at the car, let's go back to the hub."

“Ianto,” Owen's voice whines in his ear, “Pizza?”

“Already on it.”

“Bless you,” Gwen gasps. “I'm starving.”

Ianto comes out of the briefing room to find Owen standing at his computer station, a slice of pizza in one hand and a handful of painkillers in the other; there's an annoyed look on his face and Ianto moves to stand beside him, taking the pizza from him and putting it down on the desk.

“Come on,” he says quietly, and Owen follows obediently, trailing behind him down into the med bay, and sits up on the table without question when Ianto gestures towards it. “Shirt.”

With the shirt off, Ianto is finally able to inspect the wound on Owen's back. It's oozing gently, a combination of blood and lymph and Ianto moves around to the front of the table to find some antiseptic wipes. Wiping the dried blood from the skin around the wound, Ianto realises with a start that they're practically in the same position that got them into this mess in the first place. It's disconcerting but fitting, this healing action mirroring the moment they were both shot. He presses his palm against Owen's chest to steady him as he attempts to clean more precisely; he can feel Owen's heart pounding against his fingertips. Owen hisses in pain as Ianto dabs antiseptic across the slowly scabbing wound, flinching as though he's afraid Ianto might reach up and snap his neck or something equally violent and unexpected. Ianto clamps a hand on his arm to hold him still.

“I hate you,” he grumbles as Ianto presses an adhesive bandage over the wound.

“Of course you do,” Ianto sighs, smoothing the edges with his fingers.

“Why don't you hate me?” Owen asks in that voice that Ianto hates, the one that's crumpled and soft and utterly consumed with confusion and doubt and self-loathing.

Ianto pauses with his hands resting on Owen's bare ribcage; Owen is unbearably skinny, and he can feel the fragile bones under his touch. “Owen, let's not do this in the hub. Come on, I'll drive you to your car. We can talk about it when we get home.”

He presses a kiss to the shell of Owen's ear to show he's not mad, and pretends not to notice the way Owen flinches.

The hub has been cleared of pizza rubbish, Ianto's made one last cup of coffee for Jack, and Owen is sat on the sofa with his head in his hands, waiting. For a moment, Ianto pauses on the way to the computer stations and watches Owen's hunched figure. Sometimes he just wonders at the fact that less than a year ago, they were attacking each other and threatening bodily harm, and somehow they've got to this point. Somehow all the sharp edges have softened into something comfortable and almost stable. He knows he likes this better, especially when Owen sighs without looking up and puts out a hand.

“Would you stop staring at me? It's a little bit creepy. Get me off this sofa before I fall asleep here.”

Ianto takes the offered hand and pulls Owen to his feet. They walk together up to the car park, occasionally bumping shoulders, pretending they're not both watching each other in their peripherals. The silence drifts from genial to something heavy once they're in the car, and Ianto can _feel_ Owen thinking. He wishes he could just press his fingertips to Owen's skull and tell him to stop it for a second. In a life consumed with Jack's practically sociopathic ability to mask his emotions, and Gwen's desperation to be so bleeding heart it's almost delusional, Owen is so incredibly, achingly _human_ with all his flaws and insecurities and stupid little idiosyncrasies that it's almost hard to face.

Ianto parks next to Owen's car, and Owen has unbuckled his seatbelt and gotten out, slamming the door shut before Ianto even has time to turn in his direction. Ianto watches him wrench open the door to his own car and sighs. When Owen pulls out into the street, Ianto follows him. The damp road crunches under his tires and makes a quiet rushing sound that fills the silence like it's trying to make it not so stifling. It doesn't work.

Owen is waiting for him, hands in pockets, when he gets to the door of the building, a look on his face like he can't decide between sheepishness or annoyance. Ianto follows him up to his flat in silence. He sits on the sofa while Owen putters around making coffee and stalling for time. It feels horrible, this awkwardness when just days ago they'd sat on this sofa watching one of Owen's obscure action films, his feet in Ianto's lap, heels digging into his thigh just to annoy him. They'd nearly drifted off together on the sofa, exhaustion the product of too many late nights and early days at the hub, but Owen had managed to keep them both awake long enough to undress and collapse together in Owen's bed. Ianto had woken in the morning earlier than he'd wanted, but it was worth it to appreciate the comfortable warmth of the man asleep beside him. Now he's sat here feeling stiff and clueless and desperate for all this emotional murkiness to finally run clear.

“Coffee,” A mug with Owen's hand attached appears over his shoulder and Ianto accepts it, taking a sip and suddenly realizing just how much he needs the caffeine. Owen walks around to sit next to him on the sofa, but he leaves a hand's breadth between them. They sit in silence while Ianto tries to think of what to say.

He decides on “We really need to stop doing this,” and immediately knows it's the wrong thing. Owen's face sort of _crumples_ and for a moment Ianto thinks he's about to cry, but half a second later his expression is wiped clean and replaced with a look of guarded irritation. Ianto thinks, shit, and backpedals.

“I didn't mean this,” And he gestures at the air between them, as if that hand motion somehow encapsulates this oddly comforting, almost-close-to-stable relationship that they'd had going before three days ago. “I just meant, you know, all this avoiding the subject and placing blame and not talking about it.”

Owen rolls his eyes. “Ianto, it's what we do. And besides, if I hadn't—” But Ianto shuts him up with a wave of his hand, shaking his head sharply.

“No, listen to me. This,” And he gestures to his right shoulder, the bulky lump in his shirt where the bandages take up space, “was not your fault. It _is not_ your fault. One or the both of us would have got shot that night, no matter what. If you hadn't found those gates, we'd probably both be dead. The only ones at fault here are the aliens that shot us.”

“I could have moved faster,” Owen mutters darkly.

“Owen, I don't know if you understand the concept of linear time, but it's very hard to speed up thirty seconds without some extra help. So unless you have some sort of power I don't know about, there's no way you could have made that machine go any faster. You also seem to forget that we both got shot. That alien shot you, too.”

“That doesn't matter—”

“It absolutely does! It matters to me. You know, I'd like you to stay alive and relatively unhurt. I still don't believe in ghosts and I rather enjoy waking up with you. I'd really, really like for it to stay that way. And I know you do guilty like it's your job, but this is one thing you don't get to blame yourself for. I got shot, it happens. So did you. If you hadn't been there, it could have been worse. Now _please_ stop feeling like you're to blame because I really hate seeing you so messed up.”

“I thought you were gonna die,” Owen confesses suddenly. They've somehow shifted closer, and their legs are touching from knee to thigh. “I thought it had gone through your lung. I didn't know where Jack was and I could hear those alien bastards looking for us. And then you lost consciousness and I thought— All I could think was, I love him and I don't want to lose him and it'll be all my fault.”

Ianto gives him a crooked little smile, all rueful awkwardness and affection. “You may have figured that one out first.”

Owen nods. “Tragedy tends to do that to a person.”

“In that case, we both should have realised it earlier. Our lives are nothing but tragedy.”

“Well,” Owen shrugs. “There's this.”

Ianto shifts to face him, his hand coming up to toy softly with the hair at the back of Owen's neck. “There is this.”

Owen's hand skims up Ianto's arm to cup his cheek, and then he's leaning up to kiss him and Ianto has already threaded his fingers up into Owen's hair as he leans down to meet him. For a moment, there is nothing but the silence of Owen's flat and soft drag of Owen's lips against his and the point of heat on Ianto's face where Owen's hand is touching him, his thumb sweeping over Ianto's cheekbone. Then Owen is pulling away, and Ianto feels bereft, like it's come too soon.

“One day I won't be able to save you,” Owen mumbles, as though it isn't one of the first promises Torchwood makes to its employees.

“I'm not asking for anything that far in the future,” Ianto pulls him close again. “I'm just asking for now. It could be tomorrow, it could be five years from now. Doesn't mean we can't have right now. Owen, I love you, let's at least make the best of what we have and worry about tragedy when it comes. I'd like a break from tragedy.”

“Okay,” Owen agrees softly. “Okay.” And he kisses him again, wrapping an arm around Ianto's shoulders to pull the kiss even deeper. Ianto's nails scratch gently at his scalp, and Owen has to pull away to stifle a massive yawn.

Ianto laughs softly, then pulls them both upright. “We should go to bed. You look wiped. And it's getting light out.”

“It is six in the morning,” Owen agrees, yawning again as they move to the bedroom, shedding layers of clothing and crawling into Owen's bed.

Owen moves to curl against Ianto's chest, flinching back when he makes contact with bandages instead of skin. Ianto catches the back of his neck gently. “No, don't,” he whispers, stalling the movement, and watches as Owen stares at the stark white square that almost seems to glow in the early blue dawn. Proof of their mortality, of the fragility of now. Owen's own bullet wound mirrors Ianto's. Proof of guilt he can no longer claim. He curls again, more slowly this time, and presses his cheek against the bare skin of Ianto's chest. The rise and fall of his diaphragm is steady and slow and reassuringly deep. Owen kisses the skin next to the medical tape holding the gauze on, gentle and significant, and Ianto's breath hitches. He kisses the skin on the other side of the wound, and Ianto can't help but run his fingers through Owen's hair and pull him up onto the pillows for a kiss.

As he's drifting off, gazing at Owen's slumbering form softly lit by the pale morning and feeling the possessive grip on his hip, Ianto reflects on how intensely they both seem to rely on one another. Only, this time, it's not one-sided, the way Ianto had attached himself to Lisa, or Jack, the way Owen had clung to Diane. They hold each other up, and it's comfortable, pleasant, even, and more stable than pretty much anything he's had in the last three years. Even if 'stable' is only applicable by Torchwood's definition. But they're equals, and they both want this, and _god_ does it make Ianto feel so real, their fears and joys and flaws matching up and nestling comfortably together.

They're in deep with this, and they've got the matching scars to prove it. Ianto hooks a leg over Owen's and nestles closer. At least he knows they're in it for the long haul, however long or short it may be.

 


End file.
